ability to govern. i agree with david that what we need right now is a downpayment, making some progress. one that probably involves the tax and spending side. and the pledge to do much more later. the important thing to know about the proposals on the street right now is that you can accept everything in the president's proposal for everything in speaker boehner's proposal and he would not solve the budget problems in the longer run. in my judgment, you need about twice what they have put on the table. i'm very troubled by the fact that we are giving the impression that we can solve this problem without imposing much pain on the middle-class. the president made that very explicit. he promised never to raise taxes on the middle class. of course the republicans would back him up on that. there is no way mathematically you can solve this problem without giving something. that has to involve the middle- class. that is where all the money is. as for the point about building a bridge to the bigger solution,